Challenges

Hundreds of leads assigned to the wrong sales reps  

Smith.ai’s mission is to help their clients win new business with responsive call and chat answering services. 

The company is a long-time customer of Calendly. Maddy Martin, Senior Vice President of Growth says, “We have always relied on Calendly and recommend it to our clients.” 

Calendly provides an easy way for Smith.ai’s virtual receptionists to book meetings directly on their clients’ calendars. The Smith.ai team also uses the same method to schedule calls with their own potential and existing customers. “Calendly provides an easy and fair way for our agents to book leads with our sales team,” says Maddy. 

During a phase of high growth, Smith.ai experienced a strain on their workflows. Leads were coming in from all directions — from Facebook ads to text messages — and they weren’t always assigned to the right salesperson. 

For example, a person booking from a Facebook ad would miss a confirmation email and inadvertently book two or three sales meetings. Without a system in place to screen for double bookings, customers received communications from multiple sales reps and became confused. 

Leads also weren’t registering in Salesforce with complete information, so some were automatically routed to the wrong account executives. Leads from retargeting campaigns went to new sales reps instead of the previously assigned reps. And customers meant for partnerships went to direct sales.

Overall, reps spent a lot of time searching for information, coordinating hand-offs to the right reps, and rescheduling meetings. It slowed the sales process down, which was a red flag for Bryce, Sales Enablement Manager, who says, “Speed to lead can totally change a customer’s opinion of you and whether they see you as a trusted partner for their business.” 

Smith.ai needed a way to boost sales productivity, while also making the customer experience as smooth as possible. All while its lead volume was doubling.

The team looked for a tool to help pre-screen leads and automatically send them to the correct sales reps.

Just as they were about to choose a different solution, Calendly introduced its Routing feature. 

“Since we already used Calendly, we felt like it would be foolish to not explore their new feature,” says Maddy.

“We looked at other Routing options, and they required weeks of setup and troubleshooting,” says Bryce. “Instead, Calendly Routing took me about 30 minutes to set up.”

It paid off, too.  

“Calendly Routing proved to be not only a robust solution, but something we could virtually plug-and-play,” says Bryce. 

Smith.ai began using Calendly Routing, which improved speed-to-lead, ensured leads were rotated to sales reps more fairly and evenly, and unlocked the full potential of their sales team. 

Solution

Connecting leads with the appropriate sales reps 

Calendly Routing makes it possible to qualify, route, and schedule meetings instantly from a website or digital campaign. The information prospects enter on a form automatically matches them with the right account in Salesforce, so customers can book meetings with the correct sales rep from the start.

“We adopted Calendly Routing to create a workflow for our team to qualify a lead and route them in the most efficient way possible to set up a meeting with sales,” says Bryce. 

All it took was setting up a few new automation rules. 

Routing leads from Facebook ads and website forms to the right place

The team set up Calendly Routing so leads coming from paid Facebook lead gen ads and website forms are instantly booked with the right sales reps. 

Returning customers are now automatically linked to their pre-assigned sales reps, boosting consistency, and streamlining the customer experience. 

When the lead is new, they’re sent to a Round Robin event for direct or partner sales, depending on their answer to an “Industry” question. Leads can access group calendars of multiple sales reps to maximize options, and choose a meeting time that best suits them. Round Robin events also ensure leads are evenly distributed among available reps. 

Smith.ai’s implementation of Calendly Routing has led to more leads booking demos with sales reps.  

Eliminating friction with routing logic 

Before Calendly Routing, leads were sometimes sent to the wrong sales team. For instance, a buyer looking to implement Smith.ai on behalf of a marketing agency would be sent to direct sales instead of the partnerships team. 

Now, the qualifying questions set up with Calendly Routing Forms ensure leads get sent to the partnerships team or direct sales team, according to information, such as Industry, that they enter in the routing form. 

“Our buyers are set up with the person who is the expert in their field,” says Bryce. 

As a result, the partnerships team is getting more qualified leads sent their way, and the direct sales team remains focused on selling to business owners, one-to-one. 

Automatically sending leads to their existing sales rep 

Perhaps the biggest win across the board for Smith.ai has been the ability to automatically route leads to their pre-assigned representative in Salesforce CRM.

No matter what channel the lead comes from, routing logic is set up to check if they are already assigned to a rep in Salesforce. If so, the lead is automatically directed to book a meeting time on their original rep’s booking page.  

Results

26% higher MQL booking rate and 20% more meetings held

Since implementing Calendly Routing, Smith.ai has seen a massive boost in marketing qualified leads (MQL) converting to appointments from their website. Now, 34% of MQLs convert into demos, thanks to automated routing.

They've also seen a 20% increase in show rates for initial consults, since they've eliminated the confusion and messiness that comes from shifting reps, dates, and times.

Simpler meeting frameworks have resulted in a 104% increase in meetings year-over-year and impressive time savings for the sales team. “We save 10-12 hours each month, which historically had been spent managing processes manually,” says Bryce.  

Incredibly, introductory partner calls have increased by 360%, going from 5 to 23 calls per week. Now that leads are being routed to the right sales team, the partnerships team is able to capture more potential business because qualified leads are not getting lost in the shuffle. 

Overall, both the direct and partner sales teams are working much more effectively and delivering better service. According to Bryce, this is the biggest win. “Providing an efficient customer experience is a core part of our value proposition. We always want to ensure there’s ease and consistency from start to finish.”

The sales team can now focus on what they do best – selling. Bryce says, “Our team is not left having to deal with unnecessary lead-flow logistics. More productivity at scale means more revenue secured, so we consider this a major win.”

Ready to explore what Calendly can do for your bottom line? Contact our Sales team today.